No War but Class War

I’d been wondering which messianic figure was going to step up first and take a jackhammer to the undercarriage of the runaway capitalist bus.

Eric Cantona’s going to.

Here he is – apparently in jail, judging by his shaved head and baggy uniform – explaining to everyone how we can tie together the laces of capitalism’s Timberlands, and watch it thunk like a falling redwood to the hard, cold ground. We short-trousered, catapult wielding scamp David; it three-sheets-to-the-wind string-vested Golliath. We mouse; it elephant. We nippy little snow speeders; it harrumphing mechanical camels.

Here’s how it works, from the secure common room of the man himself.

In a nutshell, we all toddle along to the bank pull out our savings and, BAM, the system goes down like a horse-drawn Zeppelin.

As the sage of Marseilles explains in his quiet, avuncular way, “It’s not complicated. Instead of going on the streets and driving kilometers by car, you simply go to the bank in your country and withdraw your money… And if there are a lot of people withdrawing their money, the system collapses. No weapon, no blood or anything like that.”

The flaw in this revolution is that the richest people are the best equipped to do the most damage, and at the same time the least likely to want to do it. People do get more right wing as they grow older and richer: just look at Slobodan Milošević.

The good news is that Cantona’s probably rich, so let’s hope he takes out his money, and it leaves a sizeable dent. The bad news is that I’m not.

Any attempt I make to go to the bank and close my account can only be an act of counter-revolutionary treason. “I’d like to close my account in protest at the injustices visited on the poor and vulnerable by your iron-mittened capitalist bankfists,” I’ll declare.

“Jolly good,” they’ll purr. “Here’s your bill.” And I’d have to pour several thousands of non-existant pounds back into the capitalist trousers.

So, everyone. Rise up. Follow Eric. Vote with your feet and let your pin codes do the talking. Draw your money out of the bank on 7 December. Slip loose of your chains and shrug off the straightjacket of fiscal hegemony.

But only if you’re solvent. Don’t spoil everyone else’s fun just because you can’t afford it.